how has your disaster prep actually helped you during disaster?

[Devilmans Hand]

This is a question for those of you hit by Hurricane Sandy and needed to use your survival kit and other preparations. I'm curious to see how your preparations have helped you with the current hardships.
I see all the survival kit threads and I am curious to see what other people actually use.

For anyone else that has been through a natural disaster of significant magnitude, the same questions can apply to you if you would like to share.


What items in your kit helped you or are helping you get through your particular devastation in your area?

What did you pack that you found you did not need?

What other items do you wish you had and why?

What necessary services were available or not available in your area?

What items helped with morale?

Again, i'm just curious as to how individual short-term disaster preparation actually helps those people. This is an informal survey that will not be used for any type of formal research and is solely for my curiosity.

 

[titanpat57]

Packed the Triton L-5 on demand hot water heater....the Engel...the Mr. Heater Big Buddy, and both 20lb. fiberglass tanks. Warm showers in a warm room for whoever needed it.

The trucks dual batteries offered phone charging stations, and LED lighting at night. The new Rigid floods mounted in the rear bumper offered flood lighting over a large area for managing fuel fill ups at night

The ROAM Honda gen. even managed to give us two separate movie nights(powered a 42" flat screen, a DVD player, and lighting in the cafeteria) for the kids still stuck on campus. Don't think I would've changed a thing to be honest.

 

[Tapage]

this is a good thread ..

 

[Rubiconcruiser]

Glad to hear you arre OK Pat. was kind of worried there for awhile.

 

[titanpat57]

Glad to hear you arre OK Pat. was kind of worried there for awhile.

Thanks Jim...it was a pretty serious storm.

We lost power Monday night and got it back Saturday night.

Thank God it wasn't cold. The only saving grace was we were able to convince the 600+ resident students to go to their own homes. We ended up with about 6, one was international, and the others had no homes left to go to, they were destroyed in the storm.

 

[jonnyquest]

Awesome public service Pat.

 

[madinal]

We lost power for a week following the tornadoes in northern Alabama a couple years back. Was able to run the house on our 3.5k generator and had several folks over to charge phones and-at my wifes insistance-watch the royal wedding. Had propane for cooking. I have 5-gal cans of gas for the plane so I went to the airfield to retrieved them for the generator.
One key item of preparation is we never let our cars get below half tank so we didn't end up in a gas line.
Took the Cruiser into the badly damaged area and pulled allot of junk out of folks yards. No winch but used chains and 4wd.

 

[titanpat57]

Awesome public service Pat.

Thank you Johnny..but they pay me here...so I felt I just did what I should do, based on the knowledge and equipment I had on hand.

That is the beauty of this type of thread...I think it'll serve two fold.

> Based on others experiences, it may help you get a handle on the type of equipment you're using or needing, is it designed to operate with steady use for a week or more, and how will you power it. Input after an event like this can help save someone suffering, or perhaps not even surviving.

>Every scenario is different (hot?, cold? wind? water?etc.) With proper planning PRIOR to the event (in our case we had 4-5 days of emergency personal saying this was going to be an event not like any other) I think you can minimize your exposure to it being an extremely uncomfortable situation for you and your family. Obviously no one can predict earthquakes, wildfires, etc....but our situational awareness, and preparatory precautions, gear usefulness and assessment, we can manage to survive.

Please continue to post useful equipment, especially if you have faith in it, and working knowledge of it.

 

[hkeller]

Most of my area lost power for about a week this summer. Generator was the most helpful item. I had three 5-gallon gas cans full, but still had to travel twice that week to find more. I plan to covert the generator to propane, and keep about ten 20-lbs tanks full. Propane stores better than gas. With that much propane on hand, I should be able to run the generator all week.

I did fail to change the oil mid-week, so I probably exceeded reccomended service life of the oil by a factor of three.

It was close to 100 degrees all week. The generator was used for lighting and A/C in our popup camper, which was quite the envy of our neighbors.

 

[Koffer]

I made out well with my junk ,Ive collected over the years for this kind of stuff . I have a older EB5000 Honda generator That needed a good carb cleaning that i picked up some years ago cheap (as in free)that kept the well pump running when needed for the 12 days the power was out .
I used the Honda EU2000i to run the fridge, pellet stove for heat and a light at night. That little dude ran most of the time and is Cruiser friendly .
In the 12 days I used about 15 gals of fuel
My buying of the crappy little LED flashlights when on sale came in handy as they were all over the house.
I also used a old hurricane lantern with paraffin oil at night in the stairwell as a night light.
We had a bunch of canned goods so that was taken care of .
Today is my 1st day off (and now got a nasty head cold to boot )since the start of the storm that was 14 to 18 hour days.
The whole thing stunk but was really wasnt bad at all , just glad it over right now

 

[Joe_E]

I have 3 cases of MRE's in basement, which we didn't need.

I have a woodstove which we burned the days after the storm as it got colder for heat.

I have a Yeti 75 cooler that held ice all week for milk and other fridge stuff.

The freezer never defrosted other than a little ice melting from ice maker.

The wife put together one of those storage bins with soups and stuff.
We have a propane stove so we were good on the heating stuff up.

Plenty of candles and flashlights. Headlamps are real handy in times like those.

I wired my house a year or two ago with a gen sub panel and cut out switch. Something i always wanted to do and that storm a year or so ago sealed the deal.
I have a Miller Bobcat welder/generator and have a big jumper wire to plug the house into the welder. They are 10,000 watts. It will power the well, heater, fridge, micro, lights all day long.
Problem is it guzzles gas. I figure about a gallon an hour.

We lost power for 6 days during Sandy. Then 2 days during the noreaster last week, which ironically caused ten times the tree damage here with 10" of wet snow.

With what we had we were good. We had friends and family coming to take showers here.
My routine was starting the miller up at about 4:30 am and us getting ready for work . I'd shut off about 6 then start it again at 6 pm when i got home for a few hours.

If i couldn't of gotten gas somewhere, I would of been fawked.
But luckily the town over had power as well as Bordentown near where i work.

One sidenote is that i now plan storing about 20 gallons of gas on hand. I will simply rotate it out every few months to keep it fresh by dumping it into the vehicles.

 

[Devilmans Hand]

Thanks to everyone for their replies as of yet.

 

[Land Shark]

Sam,

Great thread here! What better way to learn than from first hand experience. While I was lucky this time and did not experience any power outages or fallen trees. I did go through my routine of making sure we were ready if power went out or trees fell. Generally we keep enough food in the pantry to keep us going for a while. So food is covered. Generally there are 2-4 Scepter fuel cans we keep around full so fuel is good. I have a 5k generator that I run at least once a month to make sure it is always ready. I have spent some time figuring what I can run on it and what I can't run on it. So back up power is covered. I have a well so I can run the well pump to get water however we also fill one of the bath tubs with water and my water cans too. So we have water for what ever we need. Chainsaw, fuel, oil and extra chains are always on hand so I can cut / clear if need be. Also several axes are around as well if needed. We have plenty of fire wood on hand to keep the fireplace going so heat is covered. I keep a couple of propane tanks around and have a hot water heater that way we can have hot water if we need it. Gas grill to cook with. I also keep several thousand rounds of ammo for the M4 and hand guns. Batteries are always around and I keep a gas lantern and a battery lantern if we need to conserve using the generator for lighting. This is for me a minimal approach to what we would need/want in the event of a small short power outage or storm that brings tree down and the like. This is by no means the end all stock pile for end of times s*** but a good basic approach to keeping my family somewhat comfortable in the event of the like. One thing I have learned over the years is to keep your gear/ supplies and the like always ready and not think that you will have time to go out and re supply or re gear on short notice. Again great thread. Thanks for posting

 

[Devilmans Hand]

thanks for posting Allen

 

[jonheld]

We were without power for 6 days, no storm damage except for a large tree limb that crushed a neighbor's fence. Got off real easy this time.

Used the ARB fridge for the essentials like milk, juice, eggs, cheese, etc. Ran for 6 days on my single DieHard Platinum battery, but it wasn't very warm out.
Used the multitude of USB ports in the truck for charging cell phones. No need to keep laptops up as all the UPS supplies in the house were exhausted after the first 24 hours.
Ran an extension cord from the inverter in the truck down to the sump pump in the basement. We never got enough rain for it to fire.
Made coffee every morning with my Cabela's percolator on the stove top. Makes great coffee. My wife collects candles for decoration, so at one point we had at least 20 going throughout the 1st floor. It looked like we had power. Candles also keep the rooms warm, especially with the combination of a fire in the fireplace. Had lots of dry wood as well.

Drove to friends houses to shower and clean up. On day 6, the generator fairy came to my house with a 6KW unit and 30 gallons of fuel. Utility power was restored later that night. Ran the generator for 2.4 hours total.

Now, please keep in mind that 6 months ago I had already set up an inlet box to the panel on my house. I bought and installed everything needed EXCEPT THE GENERATOR. My wife was not pleased. In fact I think the next storm should be named after her.

 

[JCruse]

This is a question for those of you hit by Hurricane Sandy and needed to use your survival kit and other preparations. I'm curious to see how your preparations have helped you with the current hardships.
I see all the survival kit threads and I am curious to see what other people actually use.

For anyone else that has been through a natural disaster of significant magnitude, the same questions can apply to you if you would like to share.


What items in your kit helped you or are helping you get through your particular devastation in your area?

What did you pack that you found you did not need?

What other items do you wish you had and why?

What necessary services were available or not available in your area?

What items helped with morale?

Again, i'm just curious as to how individual short-term disaster preparation actually helps those people. This is an informal survey that will not be used for any type of formal research and is solely for my curiosity.

The ultimate piece of my "disaster kit" - the crown jewel, the
piece de resistance, was my 9670 peak watt generator, complete with whole house transfer box, almost completely failed simply because we couldn't get GAS for it! For the first two days I was all set up and thumbing my nose at the whole situation because I had got five gallons the night before the storm - until I got down to the last couple gallons of juice and there was none to buy anymore. Then you had to drive around hoping to find a station that just got their power back, and I mean JUST, so you could get some before the line went for two miles down the road. In each direction. I was siphoning gas out of my car to run the generator for two days.

 

[o8ko8k]

Having been through Katrina (not sandy) I could probably write a book's worth of junk i found useful or thought of in hind sight. But I’ll just stick with the basics.

My top 5 things: Food, Energy, communications, safety, mental health.

Food: Stock pile some food/water, very helpful, and probably goes without saying

Energy: I would highly recommend getting an alternative fuel generator for aforementioned reasons above. Gasoline is the number one item that disappears during disaster. Converting a gas to propane is rather simple too. Propane generators have some PROS and CONS; the PROs: The carb will never varnish and go bad, the fuel will last forever, you are more likely to be able to “GET” propane than gasoline. You can store the propane indefinitely unlike its gasoline cousin. CONs: propane is sluggish when super cold, fuel is economy is less.

Communication: Radio equipment, get a scanner so you can know what’s going on, get a ham License so you can TALK back and ask questions if needed. The key here is keeping your situational awareness at its peak. With a scanner and a ham radio you can hear police, fire, and emergency communications, know where Red Cross is setting up, where to get food water, medical help, fuel, find loved ones, etc. Things can get chaotic and you will have very little resources, if you do need to travel, you will probably only have one shot at it so you best know you’re going in the right direction.

Safety: Be safe. Personally find that a firearm comes in handy when the time is right, but it’s nothing compared to a level head and some common sense. Remember, people are brilliant when they are inspired; they are the most dangerous thing on the planet when they are scared. Watch out and be able to spot a scared person, learn to defuse, avoid, etc. This is the safest thing I can think to offer.

Mental health: Keep some stuff in your go kit that reminds you of your normal life that you DON’T HAVE ANYMORE. Could be; photos, stuffed animal, lucky hat, things that remind you of loved ones, anything. You will be scared too. Don’t be stupid; surround yourself in things that help you through it, so you’re not that guy (see safety above).

 

[doug720]

We are fortunate to have our class A motorhome stored on the property. It is kept full of water and fuel, has full solar set up with 2 large battery banks. When I remodeled our home, we lived in it for 3 months, so it would work great for an emergency also.

We keep a good supply of non-perishable foods and have a fair amount of frozen items also. The motorhome has a 3 way fridge so that would also help.

My suggestion is to get a smaller rv/trailer and be self contained in an emergency. RV's can be found for little money, keep some extra fuel and water stored, have a portable generator if it does not have one, and you would be set. An RV would also work great if you have to evacuate as you are self contained and wont need a hotel.

M 2 cents.

Doug

 

[73fj40lc]

I have been through several Hurricanes. I went through Hurricane Hugo and South Carolina really got tore up. I learned very quickly that my generator was a major noise nusance. I didn't think about having to hear my generator run for hours at a time or my neighbors running theirs. I adapted a different muffler to my generator that really helped the noise level. I also converted my generator to a tri fuel carb from US Carberation. I now can run gas, propane, and natural gas. I have natural gas going to my house and I always have 3 to 4 20lb. propane cylinders on hand as well as 25 gallons of gas stored. If you are going to get a generator do your homework before you buy. Keep several quarts of gene oil on hand as well as an air filter. Get your 220volt plugs and any extenson cords made up ahead of time. Spend time learning the start up and power draw for everything that you will need to run in your house. Get some AC led light bulbs for the lights in your house that you will need. You can illuminate your whole house with led bulbs for less wattage than one 65 watt regular light bulb. They can be expensive so I have some stored to screw in when needed.
I know that I have only dealt with power issues. Restoring some sense of normality and comfort goes a long way in dealing with the stress of going through a natural disaster. Don't dismiss your mental welfare and stress levels. It does make a huge difference in the overall outcome.

 

[Devilmans Hand]

I thank everyone for their comments.